Judge may rule that the term "iPhone" is too generic for one company to own

A day after Apple announced the
iPhone, Cisco Systems quickly filed a lawsuit
against Apple, claiming that the computer company infringed on its
trademark. True enough, Cisco's consumer arm Linksys had released a product
called the iPhone earlier than Apple, and the trademark name
"iPhone" had been owned by Cisco for several years already. Despite
all this, Apple decided to launch its mobile communications device under the
iPhone name anyway -- a move declared as extremely bold by many analysts.

According to Brian Banner, a seasoned attorney dealing with intellectual
property and trademarks at Rothwell Figg, the "iPhone" name may
actually be generic enough that a judge will rule it usable by both Apple and
Cisco. The ruling will be under condition however, that a company name be
attached to the term "iPhone," like "Apple iPhone" or
"Cisco iPhone." Banner mentioned that the term may also be deemed
generic enough to use by any company.

"They must have figured the reward would be greater than the risk. They
probably did a lot of homework before calling it the iPhone and figured that
the registration Cisco has is not a serious impediment," says Banner. But
this is definitely not what Cisco thinks. Cisco representatives indicated that
it will vigorously defend what it owns. Apple on the other hand disagrees with
Cisco. "We believe that Cisco's U.S. trademark is tenuous at best,"
said Apple representative Katie Cotton. "We are the first company to use
the iPhone name for a cell phone and we're confident we will prevail."

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

> "You keep saying that "generic" terms cannot be registered but that terms which are "somewhat generic"

No. I never used the term "generic", because (as you apparently know) it has special meaning within trademark law. I used the English word "general" instead. To me, the term "iPhone" brings to mind an "Internet Phone" of some sort, just as "eMail" means "Electronic Mail". Both are generally descriptive terms (when applied to phones and mail, respectively) and thus both would face more stringent challenges to be recognized as registered marks.

> "we both agree that lack of use for 3 years establishes a rebuttable presumption of abandonment...but that presumption is rebuttable.

All presumptions are rebuttable...else there would be no need to go to court. However, from all the publicly available evidence (which is all we can debate at this time) all the points lie in Apple's favor, not Cisco's.

> "If you associate a very tenous/unsupportable allegation with a very strong one and bring them both in the same court, it is likely that your credibility before the judge and jury will be blown out of the water by the tenous claim"

I'm sorry, but this isn't true. Ask any attorney. I've been to civil court dozens of times, both as plaintiff and defendant. You make any and all claims that have even a slim chance of succeeding...and you regularly expect many of them to fail. A claim being rejected by a judge in no way prejudices any of your others.

> "I've always been taught to bring causes of action that pass the "laugh test."..."

Ah, but a claim that has a slim chance of succeeding passes the "laugh test". By definition.

Apple claims cell phones are a different market than VoIP phones. Personally I disagree...but its certainly not wild enough to make me laugh. Now, the EU attacking Microsoft by defining the "workgroup server software market" separately from the "server software market", even though the exact same products are marketed and sold in both...that fails the laugh test in my opinion. Yet it went to court and the judge sided with the EU.

It is an attorney's business-- indeed his duty-- to advance any and all claims he feels have even a small chance of succeeding.